Quotes from Mark Twain

It is not that I believe that there are too many idiots in this world, just that lightning isn't distributed right.

His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it is not so. I will give you details.

there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it.

by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed; there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform — (or pause and reflect).

The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.

There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.

This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

Descoperise f?r? s? ÅŸtie c? pentru a face pe om s? doreasc? un lucru, fie c?-i b?rbat în toat? firea, fie c?-i b?ieÅ£aÅŸ, trebuie s?-i înf??iÅŸezi acel lucru ca greu de obÅ£inut.

I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose.

I am a border-ruffian from the State of Missouri. I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption. In me, you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture; this, gentlemen, is the combination which makes the perfect man.

Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward.

Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet—no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.

I can help anyone get anything they want out of life. The only problem is that I can't find anyone who knows what they want.

If I owned half of that dog, I would shoot my half.

Do not bring your dog. (advice for attending a funeral)

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug (Mark Twain)

to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.

Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle?—the burning of Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window, fireman brake his neck!' Why, THAT ain't a picture!

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.

When a man's dog turns against him it is time for a wife to pack her trunk and go home to mama.

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

So I hove a brick through his window...